The Peasant, or “Trudovik”, Group and the R.S.D.L.P.

Published:Volna, No. 14, May 11, 1906.

      Published according to theVolnatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1965,

      Moscow,Volume 10,

      pages410-413.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Yesterdaywe examined the attitude of the Social-Democrats towards the Workers’
Group in the

				Duma.[1]Let us now look at the question of the Trudovik Group.

Thisis the name of the group of 130 to 140 peasant deputies in the Duma who
are beginning to dissociate them selves from the Cadets and to form an
independent party. This process of dissociation is far from being completed, but
it has become quite marked. Goremykin magnificently expressed this by his winged
words: one-third of the members of the Duma (the Trudovik and Workers’ Groups
together roughly make up one-third) are asking for the gallows.

Thesewinged words have clearly defined the difference between the revolutionary
and the non-revolutionary (Cadet) bourgeois democrats. In what way is the
Peasant Group revolutionary? Not so much in its political demands—which
are far from being stated in full—as in its agrarian demands. The peasants
are demanding land, and all the land at that. The peasants are demanding land on
terms that will really improve their conditions, i.e., without compensation, or
with a very moderate compensation. In other words, the peasants are virtually
demanding an agrarian revolution, and not agrarian reform. They are demanding a
revolution that will not in the least affect the power of money: it will not
affect the foundations of bourgeois society, but will very drastically undermine
theeconomicfoundations of the old serf-owning system, the whole of
semi-feudal Russia—Russia of the landlords and bureaucrats. That is why the socialist proletariat
will with all its heart and all its energy help the peasants to achieve their
demands in full. Unless the peasants are completely victorious over all their
oppressors left over from the old order, it will be impossible to achieve the
complete victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. But the whole people
need such a victory, and the proletariat needs it in the interests of its great
struggle for socialism.

Butwhile supporting the revolutionary peasantry, the proletariat must not for a
moment forget about its own class independence and its own special class
aims. The peasant movement is the movement of another class. It is not a
proletarian struggle, but a struggle waged by small proprietors. It is not a
struggle against the foundations of capitalism, but a struggle to cleanse them
of all the survivals of serfdom. The masses of the peasantry are engrossed in
their great struggle. It naturally appears to them that by taking all the land
they will solve the agrarian problem. They long for an equalised distribution of
the land and for its transfer to all the toilers; but they forget
about the

pow erof capital, about the power of money, about commodity economy, which even
under the “fairest” division will inevitably again give rise to
inequality and exploitation. Engrossed in their struggle against survivals of
serfdom, they do not see the subsequent, still greater and more arduous struggle
against capitalist society as a whole for the complete achievement of
socialism. The working class will always wage this struggle, and for this
purpose will organise itself in an independent political party. And the harsh
lessons of capitalism will inevitably enlighten the small proprietors more and
more rapidly, convincing them that the Social-Democrats are right, and will
induce them to side with the proletarian Social-Democratic Party.

Theproletariat often hears the bourgeoisie say nowadays:

you must march together with the bourgeois democrats. Without their aid the
proletariat will be unable to carry out a revolution. That is true. But the
question is: with which democrats can and should the proletariat marchnow? With the Cadet democrats, or the peasant revolutionary democrats?
There can be only one answer to this question:not with the Cadet democrats, but with the revolutionary democrats; not with the
      liberals, but with the masses of the peasantry.

Bearingthis reply in mind, we must not lose sight of the fact that the
more rapidly the peasants become enlightened and the more openly they act in
politics, the more markedly do all revolutionary elements among the bourgeois
democrats gravitate towards the peasantry and, of course, also towards the
petty-bourgeois townsfolk. Minor distinctions become unimportant. What comes to
the fore front is the primary question: are the various parties, groups and
organisations going all the way with the revolutionary peasantry? More and more
clearly we see the Socialist-Revolutionaries, certain independent socialists,
the most Left of the radicals and a number of peasant organisations mergingpoliticallyinto onerevolutionary democracy.

Thatis why the Right Social-Democrats at the Congress (Martynov and Plekhanov)
were greatly mistaken when they exclaimed: “The Cadets are more important
as a party than the Socialist-Revolutionaries.” Taken by themselves, the
Socialist-Revolutionaries are a cipher. But as exponents of the spontaneous
aspirations of the peasantry, the Social ist-Revolutionaries are a part of the
broad, mighty revolutionary-democratic masses without whose support the
proletariat cannot even think of achieving the complete victory of our
revolution. Therapprochementbetween the Peasant, or
“Trudovik”, Group in the Duma and the Socialist-Revolutionaries is
not an accident. A section of the peasantry will, of course, understand the
consistent point of view of the Social-Democratic proletariat; but the other
section will undoubtedly regard “equalised” land tenure as the
solution of the agrarian problem.

TheTrudovik Group will no doubt play an important role both inside and, what is
more important, outside the Duma. The class-conscious workers must do all in
their power to increase their agitation among the peasants, to induce the
Trudovik Group to separate from the Cadets, and to get this group to advance
full and explicit political demands. Let the Trudovik Group organise itself more
compactly and independently, let it enlarge the scope of its contacts outside
the Duma, let it remember that the great landquestion will not be settled in the Duma. That question will be settled by the
people’s struggle against the old regime, and not by voting in the
Duma.

Todaythere is nothing more important for the success of the revolution than
this organisation, education and political training of the revolutionary
bourgeois democrats. The socialist proletariat, while ruthlessly exposing
the instability of the Cadets, will do everything it can to promote this great
work. And in doing so it will shun all petty-bourgeois illusions. It will abide
by the strictly class and proletarian struggle for socialism.

Longlive the complete victory of the peasants over all their oppressors, the
proletariat will say. That victory will be the surest earnest of success in our
proletarian struggle for socialism.

[1]Seepp. 402-05 of this volume.—Ed.